Now that Thanksgiving is almost literally right around the corner, I was wondering if any of you knew the following:

*Did you know that turkeys are just as sentient as your dog?

*Did you know that turkeys typically like to eat breakfast and dinner together as a family?

*Did you know that mother turkeys are fiercely protective of their young, and will risk their lives to save their babies? Indeed, it is the natural tendency of turkeys to roost in the safety of the trees at night, and yet mother turkeys reject this to stay on the ground with their babies until they are old enough to fly.

*Did you know that baby turkeys will stay close to their mother up until they are five months old (the age, coincidentally, when farmed turkeys are sent off to slaughter)?

*Did you know that once trust has been established, turkeys love to be stroked, snuggled and petted for long periods of time? And did you know that, when receiving such affection, many turkeys make a sound that can only be described as “purring”?

*Did you know that turkeys have a 20+ “word” vocabulary, and that each & every turkey has a unique voice, distinctively different from every other turkey on the planet?

*Did you know that turkeys like to listen to music, especially classical, and will often sing along?

*Did you know that the average natural lifespan of a turkey is 10-12 years, and that some turkeys have lived past the age of 20?

*Did you know that commercial turkeys are slaughtered when they are anywhere between 14 and 20 WEEKS old?

*Did you know that between 250 and 300 million turkeys are raised for slaughter every year in the United States alone – and that roughly 46 MILLION of them have been slaughtered this year for Thanksgiving?

*Did you know that the turkey you will (hopefully not) be eating this Thursday never met her mother, and that she came into this world hatched in a cold, dark drawer packed with thousands of other confused baby poults?

*Did you know that 99% of all Thanksgiving turkeys are raised on factory farms, where they never – not once – ever see the sun on their faces or feel the grass under their feet?

*Did you know that during the entire 3-6 months that they are “alive”, farmed turkeys are scared and often in great pain?

*Did you know that, unlike how we have been euphemistically told, your Thanksgiving turkey most certainly did NOT “Give” its life to be your dinner, but rather fought and clawed and scratched and wailed for its life to the end?

*Did you know that the domesticated turkey you will (hopefully not) be eating this Thursday was bred to grow so fast that she could barely walk at all the day she was crammed into a transport truck and hauled off to her brutal death – and that she almost undeniably watched firsthand as many of her cousins died of heart attacks before she went?

*Did you know that turkeys have their beaks seared off and their toes cut away in their infancy without receiving any anesthesia?

*Did you know that turkeys are packed into long, windowless buildings by the thousands, and that these drastically overcrowded conditions force turkeys to live their short, brutal lives mired in their own waste – and that they are constantly exposed to ammonia fumes and irritating dust which cause most of them to develop respiratory diseases, ulcerated feet, blistered breasts &/or ammonia-burned eyes and throats?

*Did you know that turkeys experience horrific cruelty during their final hours of life, where “catchers” enter the sheds in darkness to roughly collect them as quickly as possible; grabbing them roughly by their ankles, carrying them upside down to waiting trucks, and stuffing them violently into crowded crates waiting there?  Did you know that during this process, many turkeys suffer broken wings and legs?

*Did you know that turkeys are then transported for up to 36 hours without food or water, in open-sided crates where they are exposed to weather extremes from scorching heat to freezing sub-zero temperatures?  Did you know that many turkeys do not survive this hellish journey?  Indeed, in 2007, of the 260 million turkeys slaughtered in the United States, an estimated 988,000 turkeys – nearly 1 MILLION birds – died during crating and transport to slaughter.

*Did you know that, once at the slaughterhouse, turkeys are roughly shackled by their feet (where many heavy birds suffer broken &/or dislocated legs) and then are immediately electrocuted in an electricity-charged water bath – also without anesthetic?

*Did you know that the killing lines move so quickly in most commercial slaughterhouses that many of the turkeys are not properly stunned, and that as a result MILLIONS of turkeys every year have their throats slit open while fully conscious?

*Did you know that quite a few birds (over one MILLION per year in the United States, according to the Washington Post) actually miss the cutting blade in their abattoirs, which leads to them being literally boiled alive in a scalding tank thereafter? 

*Did you know that there are no laws whatsoever in the United States regulating all these atrociously cruel practices?

*Did you know that turkeys are excluded from all so-called “humane slaughter laws”? This means that at most commercial slaughterhouses (where over 99% of all Thanksgiving turkeys are “processed” – a.k.a. murdered), turkeys are merely dragged headfirst through electrified water carrying enough current to paralyze them, not to desensitize them to pain, but rather to make it easier to thereafter slit their throats.

*Did you know that a well-documented result of this practice is that millions of turkeys every year miss the automated throat-cutter and are dumped fully conscious into a vat of scalding water (used to loosen their feathers for removal), literally drowning them to death while they are simultaneously boiled alive?

*Did you know that almost all “humanely slaughtered” turkeys (including those deemed “free range”) still are raised in horribly cramped, highly unsanitary conditions, and still have their beaks seared off and their toes clipped without anesthesia – a process that Ian Duncan (Professor of Poultry Ethology at the University of Guelph) calls “severely painful”?

*Did you know that even the turkeys that are slaughtered by smaller operations that are “certified humane” or “high welfare”, they are still killed either via electrocution or having their throats slit while they hang upside down in a “kill cone”? 

*Did you know that even a swiftly severed head can remain conscious and aware for up to thirty seconds?

*Did you know that, no matter how “humanely” a turkey might be slaughtered, its murder takes place when it is but a child? — (Turkeys have an average lifespan of 10-12 years.)

*Did you know that there is no uniformly accepted definition of  the term “humane”?  This means that, under USDA-approved welfare labels, farms and producers decide independently what practices they will call “humane,” and the USDA then merely verifies that the company follows its own arbitrary standards.

*Did you know that there are no requirements for animals to have access to the outside under the American Humane Certified label?

*Did you know that American Humane Certified actually awarded humane labeling certification in 2014 to Butterball Turkey – and this despite the fact that, only a few short months beforehand, Butterball hatcheries were blasted by an undercover operation that exposed horrific abuse and gross mutilations of their turkeys?

*Did you know that there is an ACTUAL definition of the word “humane”, and that this definition states as follows: 1. “Having or showing compassion or benevolence … Characterized by kindness, mercy, or compassion”?

*Did you know that it is not necessary for you to eat animal products at all to live a long (actually, far longer) and healthy (actually, far healthier) life?

*Did you know that it is impossible to be truly humane while harming another being unnecessarily?

*And did you know that it is NOT necessary you to eat turkey this Thursday to have a fantastically Joy-full & peace-full Thanksgiving?

Of course you didn’t know all this, my Friends. These Truths have been intentionally kept from you by an industry that wants you to believe the lie that turkeys are “stupid birds” with little capacity for joy or suffering. In reality, of course, even domesticated turkeys are advanced social animals, and — in conditions where they are permitted to thrive — can be easily witnessed to be the affectionate, sensitive, and highly intelligent animals that they truly are.

This has all been hidden from you since your youth,
… and yet NOW YOU KNOW the Truth.

Most importantly of all, you need to know that YOU have the power to help stop this despicable cruelty, my Friends.  The law of supply & demand is alive & well in the United States (indeed, all over the world), which means that for every turkey you refuse to buy this holiday season, one less turkey (at the very least) will be raised for slaughter to suffer next year.  Large corporations and small farmers alike are only engaging in these barbaric practices because YOU & yours are paying them to do so … So if you stop doing so, they will too.

Please consider this with humility …
… and PLEASE act accordingly this Thanksgiving.

Celebrate compassionately, my Friends …

      Celebrate VEGAN!!!

               Thank you.

Filed under: Sanctifying Sentience by Scaughdt